Andy Sparrow
Active member
While in the Draenen main streamway yesterday I was looking at the sediment deposits that completely cover the walls of the passage as far up as you can see. I have not seen a deposit like this in any other cave. It consists of typical brown mud covered with a thin blue-grey crust. The entire length of the streamway is overlain by coal tips and it would seem likely that the blue-grey crust originates from this. What seems inexplicable is the uniformity of the deposit rather than being confined to specific areas of surface leak-through. It is almost as if the entire streamway went through a period of being filled with static water. Could it be that there was an event that caused this? This could have been a major collapse of the passage (Riflemans?), a dramatic increase of the sediment burden due to industrial processes, or the modification of the hydrology by mining activities. Does anyone else have a view on this?